TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bernheim,B. Douglas
TI  - The Timing of Retirement:  A Comparison of Expectations and Realizations
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2291
PY  - 1987
Y2  - June 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2291
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2291.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
B. Douglas Bernheim
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Tel: 650/725-8732
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: bernheim@stanford.edu
M1  - published as B. Douglas Bernheim. "The Timing of Retirement: A Comparison of Expectations and Realizations," in David A. Wise, editor, "The Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press (1989)

AB  - In this paper, I employ data drawn from the Social Security Administration's Retirement History Survey (RHS) to study the accuracy of expectations concerning the timing of retirement. The RHS is ideally suited for this purpose, in that it collects information on retirement plans, and follows respondents through time so that one can identify actual dates of retirement. The data are consistent with the view that, when asked to report an expected date of retirement, individuals name the most likely date (i.e. a mode, rather than a mean). Furthermore, these forecasts are highly accurate. There is very little evidence that individuals' expectations were systematically biased during periods in which Congress legislated large real increases in social security benefits. This suggests either that the benefit increaser were anticipated, or that unanticipated changes in benefits have little effect on retirement. The paper also describes differences in the accuracy of expectations by population subgroup.
ER  -